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I recently decided to bail on two of my best friends. It had to do with a girl. They weren’t pleased. What do they know? I wanted to tell the girl who I dated in Korea that I loved her. Obviously a phone call could not accomplish this. So, paid a lot of money to fly to Adelaide, Australia. It was worth it!!!

Since I left my friends, they have relaxed on the beach, navigated the backwaters of Kerala, floated in the Dead Sea, explored Petra, slept underneath the stars in a Bedouin camp in Wadi Rum, gone scuba diving in the Red Sea, watched the sunset over the desert from Mount Sinai, and visited the 5,000 year old Pyramids of Giza — or so they say.

But let me tell you, it doesn’t compare to what I’ve been up to.

A normal day for me is crazy! I wake up around 8 am. I try to fall back asleep because that’s a bit too early to start my day, but I only sometimes can. After I get out of bed, I check my email. Usually, there is an email from Eric asking if I’ll be rejoining him and Dane in South Africa. I don’t respond right away because I have other things to do. My girlfriend Inyoung is taking English classes at the moment, something I am not capable of instructing her in because I’m Irish, so I spend much of the day preparing for when she comes home.

I spend most of my time trying to figure out ways to impress her. I flew halfway around the world to surprise her, abandoning a trip I had planned for over a year and a number of plane tickets I had already purchased. Anything I might do for her from this point forward can’t live up to that, right? That’s why I am so busy trying to think of things to do to impress her that I can’t respond to my friends’ emails.

I cook. I clean. I make myself presentable. Inyoung has high standards…or at least now she does because, well, we’ve already covered this, I flew halfway around the world to surprise her. That’s why I’ve decided to start learning Korean.

My return to Korea is inevitable at this point, so Inyoung has started to speak Korean to me in our apartment, like an immersion program of sorts. When I greet her at the door everyday, like a lonely puppy, she speaks the lovely phrase jjajeungna which I’ve come to understand to mean “nice to see you” (editor’s note: actually means ‘annoying’). She’s also come to lovingly refer to me as jubu which means “handsome” (editor’s note: actually means ‘housewife’).

As you can see, I’ve been quite busy. And, of course, I haven’t even mentioned all the stuff I’ve done in Adelaide…or should I say Badelaide…as in bad actually means good-elaide. It’s a pretty awesome place.

Restaurants are one of the main things to frequent in Adelaide. Unfortunately, Inyoung wants me to save money, so I can’t go to those. The harbor is also cool, but Inyoung doesn’t like it when I go outside. The other things I do, well, there are many of them, so many I can’t list them all here. There are so many very fun things!

So, as you can see, I don’t care at all that my friends have seen two wonders of the world in the last 10 days. It’s no big deal. I’m happy where I am. There’s so much to do. Take my word for it. Inyoung does. She often calls me micheosuh (editor’s note: means crazy).